Maybe I’m just getting old, but I didn’t like seeing the Red Sox lose on Wednesday night in Baltimore.

I did, however, enjoy seeing the Orioles win.

If that makes any sense.

I have nothing against the Red Sox organization. Lord knows we’d all give our left ear to have the Orioles run their club like the folks in Boston run theirs. I’d take a half dozen of their players on MY team any day of the week.

So I wasn’t rooting against Boston last night. I don’t really care who gets in the post-season and who doesn’t once my team is eliminated, which, of course, is usually around July 25 for those of us in Baltimore who still follow the Birds.

That said – I’ve been critical of their fan base at times because I think they tend to march around (our) town like their you-know-what-doesn’t-stink, so it wasn’t hard to do a little fist pumping in the basement last night when Carl Crawford couldn’t come up with Robert Andino’s soft line drive to left field in the bottom of the 9th.

By the way…what the hell happened there? How did Crawford – an outstanding defensive player by every account – NOT come up with that ball? What did the replay show, you ask? I WOULDN’T KNOW, the fine folks at MASN forgot to show a replay of the final hit, instead focusing their cameras on the grounds crew doing high fives near the first base line.

I’m not sure how Carl Crawford wound up on the ground looking like Felix Pie with the ball at his feet, but it would have been nice to see exactly what happened on the play that ended Boston’s historic collapse.

Anyway, the outcome was quite polarizing for the Orioles faithful in town. Some took great delight in ousting the Red Sox and their band of well-traveled fans who once again made OPACY seem more like Fenway Park South. Lots of people in Baltimore talked about how great it was to have “meaningful” baseball back in the Charm City. And others, like me, just watched the game with passing curiosity, jealous as hell that our team was once again finishing in last place and the OTHER GUYS were playing for their post-season lives.

If you think Wednesday’s game really was “meaningful baseball”, you’re as wrong as Brad Pitt was for s**t-canning Jennifer Aniston.

The game would have been meaningful ONLY if the Orioles were heading to Texas today for a Friday night post-season opener against the Rangers. Had Andino’s hit pushed the Birds to the playoffs…now THAT, my friends, would have been meaningful.

The game was ONLY important because Boston was a win away from going to the playoffs. If last night’s game would have been a season finale between the Orioles and Twins, 1,835 people would have been in the stands.

Look, I completely understand that we haven’t played a game of importance in Baltimore – baseball wise – since 1997. And I also accept the fact that we’ve been agitated beyond belief over the years by the Boston fans who have invaded our city and our stadium and gone out of their way to poke fun at our losing ways.

And I don’t really care for those people, a fact I’ve talked and written about a lot — so much so, in fact, that one Boston fan in town tried to sue me over it earlier this year.

So it was fun to see those folks slither out of the stadium last night with their tail between their legs.

But last night’s game wasn’t really meaningful baseball.

It was FUN baseball.

It was EXCITING baseball.

But it wasn’t an important game at all.

We still haven’t seen an important game since October of 1997 in that ballpark.

Someday, perhaps, we will.

For now, we have to be satisfied with wins like we saw last night, where a 9th inning rally sends everyone home for the winter with a smile on their face.